Friday, February 06, 2009
"Couple Loves Cloned Best Friend"
The discussion in class over the past couple of days about clones has been somewhat mind boggling to me. Not because I don't get it...I do (especially coming from a science background) but the proposal that Prof Kalmar presents us with (would you get a clone if you had to die immediately after it was made) doesn't appeal to me...and I don't see how it can appeal to anyone else. What did we just spend all last semester discussing? The art of replication, the 'aura', the Other, the Real etc. Well if you have a clone, no matter how much it looks like you and represents you, it's not you. The aura about you as a person is gone. Maybe others around you wouldn't know the difference but you would - subconciously, consciously, whatever...you would know. This replication of you has destroyed the aura, intruded on the Real and created an Other. The scary part is, as was mentioned in class, is what if we are all clones. What if we are being manipulated by some Other...but now we have to get into the idea of life on other planets, in other galaxies etc and to me, THAT is more frightening then clones.
Anyways, during my ultramode of procrastination I came accross this article from CNN which was published today about a couple who spent over $150,000 bucks to have their DOG cloned! (yes, there are SIX figures there) The best part of the article is the name of the pooch. Lancelot was the name of their old dog...lancelot ENCORE is the name of the clone. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. However, aside from the name, that's where this story ends in brilliance (and of course the science but that's unimportant right now). They say they got their beloved yellow lab cloned (they had his DNA extracted five years ago when they found out this could be a possibility...great, give the dog a death timeline). So when lancelot died, a San Fran biotech company cloned their dog's DNA (in Korea). "Lancy" as they "affectionately" call him is apparently everything like lancy sr. Well except for the fact that he is a CLONE! How can you look at something that you know is not the real thing and pretend like it is?! When I read this story this is what it elicits in my mind.... lancy=clone=fake=robot=aluminum dog with controls, wires, short circuits, computer parts etc.
I just don't get it, do you? thoughts?...check it out for yourself. (The $150,000 still blows my mind)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/02/06/cloned.puppy/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Anyways, during my ultramode of procrastination I came accross this article from CNN which was published today about a couple who spent over $150,000 bucks to have their DOG cloned! (yes, there are SIX figures there) The best part of the article is the name of the pooch. Lancelot was the name of their old dog...lancelot ENCORE is the name of the clone. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. However, aside from the name, that's where this story ends in brilliance (and of course the science but that's unimportant right now). They say they got their beloved yellow lab cloned (they had his DNA extracted five years ago when they found out this could be a possibility...great, give the dog a death timeline). So when lancelot died, a San Fran biotech company cloned their dog's DNA (in Korea). "Lancy" as they "affectionately" call him is apparently everything like lancy sr. Well except for the fact that he is a CLONE! How can you look at something that you know is not the real thing and pretend like it is?! When I read this story this is what it elicits in my mind.... lancy=clone=fake=robot=aluminum dog with controls, wires, short circuits, computer parts etc.
I just don't get it, do you? thoughts?...check it out for yourself. (The $150,000 still blows my mind)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/02/06/cloned.puppy/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
# posted by Sophia @ 8:00 PM 
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The $150,000 blows my mind, but that's just because it doesn't make any sense to expect a clone to be 'the same dog' as the one that was cloned. It would definitely be a similar dog, perhaps even in some surprising ways, but it has to be remembered that all that 'clone' means is 'has an identical set of genes'. A clone in real life is nothing like the sort of science fiction complete-body-double clone Kalmar was talking about. So it seems like a waste of 150 grand to me; track down and adopt one of Lancelot's littermates or cousins, for crying out loud, you'll have about the same result.
And for the same reason, I can't really fathom why you're freaked out by it! Identical twins literally are clones of each other, but, so far as I know, nobody finds their existence to be horrifying or objectionable. The new 'Lancy' obviously isn't made of aluminum parts or soulless or unnatural; he's just an identical twin of the original, conceived long after the fact by scientific intervention.
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And for the same reason, I can't really fathom why you're freaked out by it! Identical twins literally are clones of each other, but, so far as I know, nobody finds their existence to be horrifying or objectionable. The new 'Lancy' obviously isn't made of aluminum parts or soulless or unnatural; he's just an identical twin of the original, conceived long after the fact by scientific intervention.
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